Among the many puzzles of China, what strikes a visitor from India is, where are all the people in the world’s most populous country?! In India, you throw a stone in any direction and a group will surface from nowhere. In China, the crowds may be visible in some public places, but there are vast expanses of empty spaces as well. Our government offices are filled with petitioners and complainants, files in all corners and paan stained walls. In the government headquarters of Pudong, the largest financial district in China, except for the receptionist, there is no one to be seen. The large plaza outside the 21 storey office building is deserted. One hardly sees more than a pedestrian or two as you drive past the Sozhou economic zone where dozens of American companies from Delta to Cal-Comp have their manufacturing units and offices. In the two day train journey from Beijing to Lhasa, very few people are visible in the countryside.
After a fortnight, I can only conclude that the reason the Chinese are far less visible in their country than we are in ours, is that unlike us, the Chinese know their place in the scheme of things and do not stray from it. On the roads, cars drive in neat lines in the middle, cyclists on a separate side road, and pedestrians on the pavement. And during office hours, they don’t indulge in “time pass”, unlike us. As our guide Bernie explains, perturbed by the constant inability of our entourage of Indian women journalists to reach the bus on time, “Time is money. I have no time for my father or girlfriend, I can’t waste it waiting for you!”
In the Confucian philosophy, reinforced by Marxist dogma, respect flows from bottom to top, and the diktat from the top cannot be altered down the line. We found ourselves banging against a stone wall every time we pleaded for a change in the pre-determined itinerary. It was futile to argue that we had not come all the way to China to visit a printing press in Beijing, and we would prefer to see Tiananmen Square instead. Our very tolerant companions from the All China Journalists Association would explain patiently that their superior had decided the programme and they could not overrule his decision.
Individual initiative is clearly frowned upon. There was a fire alarm in our Shanghai hotel one night, but the only people who rushed down to the foyer in a state of noisy agitation were the Indians and Sudanese. The Chinese (including the girl at the desk) waited patiently for instructions.
The Chinese know their objectives and are not distracted by the world’s opinions or the need to explain. A visit to Tibet makes it clear that the Chinese have quietly and systematically altered the demographic profile of Lhasa forever. There are today more Han Chinese than ethnic Tibetans in the Tibetan capital, which is growing at a frantic pace. The key positions in the state industries and in government are held by the Han Chinese. The Tibetan quarters remain a tourist attraction but the community has been quietly marginalised. Dare one suggest that if such strong armed methods had been adopted in Kashmir, our Kashmir problem might have faded away a long ago.
Why India is constantly bracketed with China as an emerging power is another puzzle. China is at least a generation or two ahead of us. The cutting edge infrastructure — massive airports, an endless string of multi-level flyovers, rows of skyscrapers in Shanghai — are in your face reminders that we have a lot of catching up to do. A senior Indian diplomat describes China as a nation on steroids. The statistics speak for themselves. China’s per capita GDP is $2000 India’s $800; China’s FDI is $69.47 billion, India’s $16 billion.
One reason why China has marched so far ahead is the extraordinary ability of the Chinese to keep reshaping their landscape, and re-inventing their political system, without any major resistance or even debate. For instance, Beijing is being readied for the Olympics and the city has undergone a total transformation. Hundreds of old buildings knocked down, over 200 factories relocated, some major industrial units closed down and 50,000 polluting taxis and 3000 buses are to taken off the roads. In comparison, for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, we are still debating whether a hundred trees can be cut down along the Mathura road to make way for a high speed corridor.
indian express
that s the only reason